Draft Water for our Future Strategy released for public comment
12 Nov 2021
After two years of working with the community to co-design a water future that balances all of our needs, we have released our draft Water for our Future Strategy for public comment.
The draft strategy is informed by more than 600 ideas shared during Water for our Future’s community engagement, where more than 5,000 community members participated in the program to help find new sources of water and be more efficient with the water we have.
It outlines the ways we will meet the water needs of our community as the population grows and average annual inflows into local reservoirs continue to decrease due to the long-term trend to a hotter and drier climate.
The draft strategy sets out our plan to meet demand for the next 50 years and comprises 24 actions over the next five years that will save water, source new water, reuse water and return water to the environment.
Across the five distinct supply systems we manage in the region, Barwon Water proposes a combination of integrated water management, greater use of recycled water for non-drinking purposes, increasing the use of the Melbourne-Geelong pipeline (MGP), and encouraging smarter water use to meet demand in all supply systems over the next five years.
As well as being open for community feedback, the strategy will also be reviewed by the Water for our Future Community Panel when it meets for the final time in late November.
The independently facilitated panel, which has met nine times over 18 months, comprises about 50 community representatives from across Barwon Water’s service region.
After considering the views of the community panel, the wider community and the direction of the Victorian Government’s discussion draft SWS, the draft Water for our Future Strategy will be finalised and submitted to the Minister for Water at the end of March 2022.